museboxings | KH3D Museboxing -- SPOILERS IMMINENT

[There is so very much more to put in order, and to do. Putting the castle back together and disassembling the machinery was no easy task, and perhaps a blessing in disguise, to stay preoccupied.

Aeleus and Dilan took turns keeping vigil, along with an eye out for Lea's return. Even is also off, securing other parts of the laboratories. His tempers have been even wilder since coming to his senses.

The sorting and cataloging of scattered data is a convenient excuse to shut himself in the quiet of their old master's office and immerse himself in the information, not to dwell too long on the sentiments of a restored heart, or the fact that he's home in this room again. Nor to allow the worry of uncertainty to rise for their missing membership. Whatever did become of Braig? And where is Xehanort now, if he survived the ordeals at all?

Ienzo neatly labels a new folder for a sheaf of loose papers, and is just about to file those away when there are footsteps down the hall, and a familiar scent-

Panic seizes up in his lungs and in that moment he can't recall if the right name is Aeleus or Lexaeus his mouth should be forming around the shout for. It hisses out in a gasp instead, and his eyes lift in expectant alarm to the doorway.]

[He's nearly at the door when the scent hits him, something so devoid of darkness now that he almost didn't realize who it might have been until he got so close. Riku hesitates for just another moment before he walks through the door, opening it into the light of the study.

The room's in disarray, just as he had last seen it. But amidst all the clutter is a man he never expected to see again, though he should have.

Riku stands at the threshold, his eyes locked on the apprentice there. Every part of him screams to draw his Keyblade, to attack him before he can alert the rest of the Organization - for surely, even if they weren't in their coats, he must be with them, like the others - and draw their attention. But for just a moment, he's dumbfounded. He stands and stares and then, he stands tall and firm.

Wait. Be prepared.

His eyes narrow.]

Zexion.

[Zexion with so much less darkness. What does that mean, though? Is he like Lea?]

[It did not feel like so very long ago, that Riku had left him drained and astonished, bewildered once again by the incredible strengths of hearts, and also darkness...it was not long thereafter at all, either, that the copy took the last of his body's life.

Rebirth sheds such a new light on things. He's unsure what to do, when Riku locks eyes with him, taller now, as if so much time had passed between their encounter in Castle Oblivion and with a sureness in his eyes that bears no trace of fear or self-doubting.

All the same, that voice (though older) is certainly the same person.

He's relieved to have the desk between them, but even beyond that he takes a hesitant step back in precaution, fingers white-knuckling the edges of the folder.

Call for Aeleus. Just call for Aeleus.]

Not anymore.

[He manages with a slight shake of his head, eyes still raking this older Riku in wary dismay.]

[Not anymore.

He believes him, too, much quicker than he really should. But he knows already, really, that he must not be quite the same. He's alive again, whole, without the darkness to impede on him. Just like Lea.

However, that doesn't mean he can be given the same amount of trust.

(Did Lea know he was here? Where is he, anyway?)

Riku frowns, taking two steps into the room so he no longer hugs the door and leaves himself open for a strike from the back. Braig can't possibly be here, can he? Lea would have said something... Wouldn't he? The paranoia and the doubt makes his heart race for the moment and he keeps his voice steady when he speaks.]

Where is Lea?

[And, more importantly:]

Is Braig here?

[A surprising question to come first, showing with a frown and a squint, as Ienzo really hadn't the faintest clue Riku had so much as met Axel before.

Guarded, he considers the other door, leading to the main computer and manufactory.

Why should he answer these demanding questions?]

Lea only woke here. [His gaze and a nudge of his head indicate the next room over. His heart was trembling- and this was embarrassing, even as his fears were held steady.] But as far as I'm aware, he has not yet returned.

[Why was Riku looking for him? Ienzo hated feeling so disoriented, particularly about the motives of potential enemies. He wasn't too put off from the idea of letting Riku tail Lea, but... why?

The question about Braig brought a darkening look to his features, pulling his head back so that his hair concealed most of the frown.]

And he is still unaccounted for at present.

[Just how much time had passed, for that boy who intruded upon the lower floors to stand before him now, so tall? It had been hard to conceive over a year's time lost, until this moment. Now his eyes gauge carefully, and there are so many unanswered questions, piling atop one another. He starts with the courteous one.

Unfortunately the irony does seem to drag off his lips in way that sounds warily facetious.]

How...else may I help you?

He hasn't come back yet?

[Yen Sid said he was on his way back here, after all. It's his turn to look briefly thoughtful - though it's more suspicion than anything else - before he turns his eyes back to the desk, the lab coat, and the boy's face. Riku frowns.

Braig's not here. Not from what Ienzo's telling him. He's not sure if he believes him, either.

He takes a moment and circles the desk, putting more distance between him and Ienzo, so he can go to the other door. There's no pull from the darkness, no scent of the Freeshooter. He really isn't there. It takes that much to confirm these facts for the new Keyblade Master, and then he finally takes the time to turn back to the man behind the desk.]

If he comes back here, you should make sure Lea's here at the very least.

[A simple warning, quiet, cautious.]

I came here to see Ansem the Wise's notes.

[Riku casts his gaze to the wall, where the various writings adorn the one side where Xehanort's picture frame once stood.]

All of them.

Perhaps he dawdled for ice cream?

[Ienzo suggests with a slow shrug, and with a dry dislike evident in his voice, rounding the table in the opposite direction to keep it a full barrier between himself and Riku as he moves into the next room-

Has Riku been down here before? Even as she multiplied the heartless, the Sorceress Maleficent had not touched this place, their late master's study, preferring the main parts of the castle. But perhaps the Heartless had shown him this way, while possessing-

He shudders slightly with memory and slides his hand into his labcoat, holding a hand pressed against his chest.]

In any case, don't imagine he intends to stay here, once he's located his friend.

[Riku's request, on the other hand, is something which makes him straighten and frown with a skeptical raise of his chin.

Ansem's notes?]

His research has accumulated to a vast collection, over the years. [Ugh. His tone sounds adopted from what Even would say, proud in the ways of academia and the inheritance of Ansem's scholarship. Ienzo's uncertain what the lending or viewing policy is, or should be. Let alone to the ones who were vessels of Xehanort.]

The Database has been restored, but-

[And are they rightful inheritors now of the research, at all? Or are they merely its undeserving keepers, for now, until the people of Radiant Garden should demand a new regime, and decide what's to be done with Ansem's work.

What should Riku need to see, moreover? Ienzo stands curiously, and follows his gaze across the many diagrams.]

What is it you're looking for?

[Ice cream. Riku can't help himself; a fleeting smile crosses his face, a tired gesture. Of all the things Lea could be doing... But then, he supposes he deserves it. Maybe he's even gone off to keep an eye on Sora.

I should be looking after him. But he said he would rather go on his own--

Already, at a crossroads. His duties as Master come first now, though he makes a note to go looking for his friend if he hasn't returned to Yen Sid's tower before long.

He glances sideways at Ienzo and nods.]

I know. But I want to see as much as I can. Any data you and the other apprentices had access too, before and after his departure--

[And he realizes that's probably suspicious. He turns to him fully and tries to relax his stance just enough. He hooks one hand in one of his belt loops.]

Sorry. I just...need to make sense of a few things.

[It's just as strange, the way he stands at ease, awkward to find himself here. Not nearly so hostile as before. Ienzo cocks his head and squint- but clearly he knew the whole of who they were, as both members of The Organization and Ansem's apprentices.

He should call out for the others. To be making this decision alone, how Riku ought to be received- it was nearly easier in Castle Oblivion, where the clearest route, once their numbers had dwindled, seemed to be disposal. But there's no time to regroup. Even or Dilan would likely only bicker with him over what should be done about it, anyway.

And Riku came here asking for Lea, of all people! Had Axel's treachery extended to lending aid to that boy who went to the darkness, after he'd bested Lexaeus?

There's just not enough time for a calculated decision. Ienzo...decides that perhaps he should stall for time.]

Hm. Come with me this way, if you please.

[He waves Riku around the desk, towards the low row of shelving set behind it- only recently reorganized, trying to make sense of the collection. Ansem the Heartless, he presumed, had tore through the information here more than once. That made him consider Riku warily again.

His scent had changed much. The darkness is more identifiable as his own.]

There are an abundance of projects- most of them are stored on the computer, in the next room. But we hadn't converted all of the older materials- some of those are in hard copy here.

Just...What is it you're attempting to parse out?

[He can read Ienzo's hesitation easily and, frankly, it's understandable. He may not have been responsible for Zexion's death directly but he had just as much of a hand in it. For that, he might feel some flicker of guilt for now...until he's entirely sure whether or not this Somebody is truly free of the Organization's influence or not.

He carefully makes his way over to the desk, looking over at the low shelf. Riku kneels, looking over the titles.

For a moment, his gaze seems lost to some unknown thought and memory that overtakes him. He feels like he's done this a hundred times before, in another body, in another life. It's dizzying.

He tears his eyes away from the books and looks up at him.]

Ansem's research data regarding the Keyblade War, and anything about the experiments.

Oh. [There's a strange and thoughtful expression which crosses his face, a closed frown. The last time he'd heard of that, outside of it's generic connections Kingdom Hearts... on the stairs, at man headquarters-] The Keyblade Wars.

[His gaze follows Riku's, along the shelves, then aside, considering with a soured squint. Why hasn't he returned with the others? Lea didn't promise when he'd return with answers, only that he'd take care of the dirty work. Good riddance. Let him lose himself between the worlds, trying to find two more bad seeds. One of them fixated on the very subject that Riku is here to know more about. A shame Braig isn't here. He'd certainly regale this chosen vessel of Xehanort's with enough avid enthusiasm to wake the sleeping demons.

Better, then, that he is not.]

That's...probably with Braig's things.

[There's a soft distance in his voice- a somberness, in his tired sigh. As irritating as he was, there's an element missing without Braig, or Xigbar. He's a force of personality, certainly that can't be denied in his absence.

What does Riku want with the documents? Is he on the hunt for Xehanort's past as well? If so- is it wise to set him on the trail?]

Master Ansem never taught me that piece of history. I've heard the simple stories that were told to children, about the legend, of course.

As for the experimental data, well- [Ienzo hasn't yet dared to look upon the data left behind here, when they cast off for other worlds and abandoned the hollow to Heartless.] Let's hope the files haven't been corrupted.

[Of course. Riku can't keep himself from frowning. For all he knows, Braig's probably stolen all of those notes and left them with nothing. He'll have to look, though, once he's finished speaking with Ienzo. He nods faintly, watching him curiously.]

It's something a lot of people just believe is a legend or a fairy tale. I'm not surprised that it wasn't taught.

[But for being on a world like Destiny Islands, with the thought of always being able to leave, fairy tales are the stuff of dreams. They're as real as the sand in his toes and the water he swims in.

And that was so long ago, it seems. Now, not only is it all real, but it's dangerous and dark, sinister in its undertones.

Riku slowly stands again.]

It'd be in the computer, wouldn't it?

Or, [Ienzo's eyes fall on the chair of his old master, voice too gentle for a statement so caustic, and murmured so exacting from memory on the tongue that they could not be his own.] We keep ourselves Wise by holding others in ignorance.

[Then his gaze flits anxiously to wall beyond it, where the back of a framed canvas is still leaning. Aeleus did him an enormous and unspoken favor the other day, noticing his long stares, and turned Xehanort's portrait around to face the wall, so that Xehanort's eyes did not seem to linger on them.]

Who can say for certain why it was not taught in earnest? Successors to a King should know of the realms beyond their bastions of light- should they not?

[There's a pointed pause- and a watchful eye, and if he's expecting these words to strike some distant chord. A litmus test. Surely if He is not asleep, then the Seeker of Darkness should recognize his own slow poisons of ideas spoken aloud...even after ten years. Time is nothing, to a Heartless.]

Braig's stories of Keyblade wielders, fighting in epic battles, were taken as no more than his usual wild fancies, until we saw them with our own eyes.

[Riku's eyes drift intentionally to the next room, and Ienzo folds his arms and takes a further step closer to the desk, as if to imply he's not about to stand in his way.]

Ah. So you already do know your way around, then.

[His gaze goes to the chair too, his frown deepening. His conversation with Ansem was short, his time on good terms with the man even shorter. He doesn't know if he should say anything about that either, though Lea knows.

He'd never breathe a word of it to anyone, though. Bad associations.]

The worlds were always supposed to be a secret. It kept people safe, kept the portals to worlds closed so they wouldn't be flooded with darkness. Letting other people know about the worlds would just make them curious.

[Riku almost smiles.]

Not that it stopped some of us.

[He goes around the side of the desk after a moment's pause, heading for the doorway. He doesn't like Ienzo at his back...but he has no choice.]

I've been here before. You know that.

[And he knows the new password, something Ienzo doesn't.]

Who else is here with you?

[Curiosity, both the harbinger of chaos and the impetus of progress. Ienzo is very tempted to call Riku a hypocrite again, but then the darkling's smile admits it first.]

Some old friends.

[He answers cryptically, with a half shrug, because he's not about to name his associates. Riku can guess for himself which of them are here, if Braig is not. Surely Lea's already given him some idea, if that's who he's really looking for.

So let him wonder if he's about to run headlong in Aeleus as he turns every corner.]

I didn't know that you've been all the way down here. Your mistress of darkness kept her business here singly focused upon the Keyhole. The heartless bred naturally, within her presence.

[Plainspoken fact, but with a certain soured note of disdain and revulsion for Maleficent, and for Riku too, for casting lots with her, if only for a time.]

Old friends.

[That says enough. But so long as Xemnas isn't one of them... No, he supposes he would have smelled the Superior's darkness first, long before he got too close. He keeps that, too, to himself for the time being.

Riku pauses when he reaches the doorway, glancing back at him. He knows that's mean to be a jab at his disposition, at the fact that he was once so tied to the dark, but he hardly lets it affect him.

Instead, he shrugs.]

I was here after that, too, only a year ago.

[And afterward, too. All for Sora, all to keep an eye on him. He could do nothing else.

He heads down to the computer room, hardly expecting the other to follow him. He goes to the computer and checks it to be sure it's responding properly, and then he starts to access it.

The names of the Princesses go in.]

[A year ago. It's absolutely astonishing, to think he's lost at least a year's time in the space between lives.

It's almost frightening. Riku has surely advanced within that span of time, and there's no telling the things he has already gleaned from earlier visits.

Ienzo follows him out of the office, and to the doorway of the computer room. It fills him with a little bit of residual dread, a tightness in his throat, to be standing here again. He folds his arms and lingers at his far left, watching.

If the others return, and ask why he allowed Riku to extract such a thing from their data, he can always claim that he'd been overpowered and without help.]

So it has been abandoned like this, for that long?

[He has access in a matter of seconds, the system opening up in front of him. There are plenty of files still capable of being accessed, but most of them he's already seen. He runs a search for what he wants and lets it go while he speaks.]

It's been abandoned since your group left it to the darkness. When Maleficent was defeated and the keyhole resealed, the people tried to come back and inhabit Radiant Garden once more.

[One hit. His eyes gloss over it briefly.]

But for the most part, people avoided this place like it was cursed.

[Because of you. Riku doesn't say it, barely thinks it, but he finally looks at Ienzo.]

King Mickey and I came here. Then Sora, then the rest of the Organization.

[Ienzo can see the Computer from here- not the content of everything he's pulling up, searching for...but there's a little bit of fear, for what he might find there.

A memory of Ansem the Wise, incredulous upon finding the data of their experiments. Ordering the projects to be sealed up and never spoken of again.

For many years, the Organization avoided Hollow Bastion too, unwilling to 'come home' and sift through all of the damages and ruin the heartless had wrought upon it. Now, it was...

It was surreal, how much of everything remained largely intact.]

The rest of the Organization?

[He questions quietly, still staring...and then he purses his mouth, curious.]

Do you know what ever happened, that we should be revived now? [How much Riku should know of the Organization's goals, he's hesitant to say but- the question is breathless of his tongue before he can quite still it.] Has Kingdom Hearts released its boon?

[The screen rolls through text documents, names and signatures, numbers, even small pictures attached to the files that fly past his eyes. They make faint chiming noises as they go into the folder behind him, but his gaze rests steadily on Ienzo.

He could answer the question. He could be honest. He actually sounds oblivious to the whole thing. Perhaps he is.

But he remembers what Zexion tried to do to him. And he knows that if that had succeeded, he might be standing beside other robed figures, with gold eyes and a name that isn't his own.

To keep himself from looking even angrier, he glances back at the screen.]

Did Xehanort come back here when you awakened?

[His voice is hollow, empty of emotion.]

[Riku must have learned much about them, if he knew all of their true names, and more of Radiant Garden's history than he'd originally assumed.

Were these things that the darkness in his heart, that the second one called Ansem had shown him?]

I don't know.

[Ienzo replies honestly, although he's troubled by two things- one, that Riku never answered his question, and also that Xehanort's name still rings small chills racing down his back, and that feeling the portrait, even still turned 'round to face the wall, is still watching them.

His eyes lower to the floor, where he had woken up to Aeleus shaking him gently, in hopes of revival- how shocked he'd been, to find an old colleague thought dead hovering over him. And then the flood of so many other emotions.

The only way he'd been able to seal them off was by pressing mind firmly over matter, and trying to continue thinking in the same way of detached reason he had tried to do for the past decade.

It doesn't work, not completely. There's something scratchy and raw with strain in his voice, when he speaks, trapped up emotions that have to be continually swallowed back. Sometimes they leave his fingertips trembling, a quiet hot feeling behind the eyes, like an ever-present headache, or onset of a cold.]

He and Braig might have already gone, or may have never returned at all.

[Somehow, he doubts that they were here. But if they were, and Ienzo is hiding them, then he's possibly walking right into a trap. His right hand starts to clench on the computer table, but his gaze remains pointedly on the screen and nothing else.

If Riku looks at him now, he might actually seem like a threat.]

Is that the truth?

[His tone brooks little argument. Don't lie to me. Lie now and, so help me, I'll see you pay.]

[His eyes linger on the way Riku's hand clenches, and his nostril's flare at the scent of darkness- not so familiar, like the Superior's, this time. So, this must be the scent of his own darkness.]

I don't know where they are. [Ienzo repeats steadily, with his voice quavering only as it drops down low with an unsettled wariness. At both Riku here, and the idea of those two missing. The feeling that this is not how it was planned to go, and that there's too much information that has failed to be passed along.] ...or if they even exist at all.

Oh, they exist.

[Riku turns around to face him, eyes like steel. Righteous anger flows through him as he's reminded of Sora sitting in that chair, sleeping. Of Xemnas catching King Mickey by the throat, and 'Ansem' slamming him into the floor. And he remembers what a close call it was.

Black coats and gold eyes. His eyes narrow but his voice, in comparison, is almost soft.]

I don't know what brought you back to life after so long. You should feel lucky and even grateful to whatever power allowed it to happen. You're being given a second chance.

[He means it, too. But then his voice tightens in anger.]

They, however, are using their second chance to ruin things.

Ah, so Braig is with Xehanort?

[His eyes seem more hurt with betrayal of abandonment, than they are satisfied with having an answer at last. Hadn't they planned to go together, into these projects, until the end of all things?

Riku's gaze is sharp, and his voice dangerous. Ienzo sets a hand to his throat, rubbing there, and trying desperately the forget the feeling of having the life wrung out of him, draining quickly into a sea of blackness, and then a long stretch of nothingness.

Being a Nobody feels like time spent in a waking dream, and one he still has yet to recover up from fully.

Emotions like stark relief and gratitude haven't settled deeply in yet- regret has been a steady ache of taking in the damages, and remorse is something he's already had to console to a manageable level in Aeleus. Something he's shunted to the side for now, with the work of rebuilding. There's too many other feelings finding their way back into the long-neglected nest of his heart.]

The science of the miracle, as we know it, is a simple concept:

[He breathes out steadily, because facts and explanations he can force out in remote and technical murmurings, leaving his heart free to mull vacantly over its own long-atrophied functions, now back in full bloom. Already, he wants to sit down again.]

When a heartless is destroyed by the keyblade, the hearts released return to Kingdom Hearts, the birthplace of all hearts. And if the cast off shell is also destroyed in turn, then two are recombined and may be reborn as one, in the place they were originally separated.

If their world has been lost to the Darkness, then they may reawaken as refugees, in a place called Traverse Town. I believe you have already made your journey there.

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